


Come into the Water

by earthbendz (adroite)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aging, Dementia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Light Angst, M/M, just two old men being in love and meeting their grandchild!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28888728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adroite/pseuds/earthbendz
Summary: Bato and Hakoda visit their first grandchild in Kyoshi Island.
Relationships: Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22
Collections: Avatar Rarepair Exchange 2021





	Come into the Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cheddarabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheddarabbit/gifts).



> this is my gift for the A:TLA rarepair gift exchange! i hope you like it <3

_Early morning is the best time to be on a boat._

This is what Bato’s mother always used to say—or at least he thinks so. She used to say a lot of things, and very little of it ever made sense, particularly towards the end of her life. This, however, is one piece of wisdom that he still carries with him. It might have come from a fog of dementia, but he’s found the observation to be surprisingly true throughout his years on the sea. Early mornings on boats are serene. Few people are awake, but it is never lonely. Bato dislikes being alone. He likes watching the sun rise, feeling the briny chill of the ocean air, stretching and hearing his old joints pop and click as he prepares for another day. He likes hearing the ship awaken, listening to voices slowly rise and feet shuffle across the wooden floorboards.

His favorite thing, however, is waking Hakoda.

Always one of the last to rise. This is their final morning on the boat, so Bato allows him to sleep in, a luxury he hardly afforded his husband the last time they took a boat trip together. That was decades ago, and there was a war raging then. Bato can feel the peace in his bones now as they glide across the cool sea towards the island where Hakoda’s son lives with his wife—and the star of the show, of course, their baby.

Bato never pictured himself as a grandfather. In some ways, he still struggles to picture himself as a father—he was always more of an uncle figure to Hakoda’s children, particularly since their relationship formed when the kids were hardly kids anymore. But Sokka is his son, and Senna is his granddaughter. He tries to think of how a grandfather might greet his only grandchild. She’s walking now but has few words, according to Sokka’s letters. Will she understand what he says to her? Should he bring her a gift?

He is so lost in thought that he hardly hears someone approaching until there is a hand on his shoulder, an arm around him. He jumps, turning to see Hakoda standing next to him, leaning into him, looking up at him. They are in their sixties, and they have been together for almost fifteen years, but Bato’s heart still flutters when he sees Hakoda’s drowsy smile and feels that arm around his torso. (It would be around his shoulders if Hakoda weren’t so short.)

“You’re up early,” Bato says, watching a cloud of breath puff out in front of him in the cold. He feels Hakoda laugh and pull him closer.

“I could hardly sleep, I was so excited,” he says. Bato looks down and into Hakoda’s dark eyes, trying to soak in his excitement like a sponge. He is excited too, but he’s also scared, and he cannot look away before he knows that Hakoda has sensed it. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Bato says, laughing and looking back out at the sunrise. The sun has emerged fully over the horizon now, and it blazes in the sky, basking Bato in warmth amidst the cold. “I am a little nervous. What if she doesn’t like me?”

He feels Hakoda pull away slightly. “Who? Suki? She loves you, Bato!”

They both laugh, and the warm sound of Hakoda’s low chuckle soothes Bato. “No, I know Suki likes me. I’m talking about the baby—I don’t know how to be a grandfather!”

“Well, neither do I,” Hakoda says.

“But you have experience with babies,” Bato says, shrugging and looking away. “Also, you have your mother to help you out. I know Kanna will help me too—and you will. I just don’t know if Senna will… _like_ me. I don’t feel like a grandfather.”

“You look like one,” Hakoda says, reaching up and running his fingers through Bato’s long gray hair. Bato smiles and swats his hand away. “Really, though—she’ll love you. Don’t think about it too hard.”

Bato nods. Easier said than done, but he trusts his husband, and he trusts Sokka and Suki to have made a baby that won’t dislike him. After watching the horizon for a few moments longer, Bato and Hakoda find a seat and continue chatting idly as they wait for the boat to dock on Kyoshi Island.

The island is warm.

Not summertime warm—the baby was born in summer, and there was no time to visit until winter started ebbing into spring. It is warmer than the boat, though, a soft breeze blowing through tall fields of grass and the sun resting its rays on rooftops. Bato pulls off his gloves and reaches for Hakoda’s hand as they follow a lazily winding path to a house they have only visited twice before, but that feels as much like home as the South Pole does.

The baby, it turns out, is impossibly small, yet also incredibly chubby. She’s a round thing that toddles from room to room, black hair curling around her ears as she babbles things that Sokka and Suki understand to mean “milk” or “up”. When he sees her, Bato’s fear that she will somehow hate him melts away, and it is replaced by an overwhelming love. He still feels awkward, staying towards the edge of the room as Hakoda holds her, coos at her, talks about her words and how she sleeps and what she’s eating with Sokka and Suki. But the love is there, drawing them all together, pulling Bato in like a whirlpool.

He doesn’t expect the attention to turn to him, for Suki to ask if he would like to hold Senna. He would, but he also has not held a baby perhaps since Katara was born, so he reaches out his arms awkwardly and lets Sokka show him how to hold her the right way. She tugs at the gray braid near the front of his hair, and her hands roam across his face, and he talks to her even though she only babbles back.

“You’re a lovely little person,” he says in his normal voice, unsure if he should mimic the baby talk Hakoda was using. “You have your father’s eyes.” Sokka and Suki both laugh loudly, and he thinks he may have said something wrong until they let him know that everyone who meets Senna has said the exact same thing. “You know,” Bato says, unthinking, “they’re her eyes too—Kya’s.”

The room grows silent, and Bato realizes that he has said something wrong. He opens his mouth to apologize, but Hakoda cuts him off. “You’re right,” he says. “You’ve always looked so much like your mother, Sokka.” Bato gazes over and sees tears pricking his husband’s eyes, and he wants to rush in and comfort him, but there’s a chubby baby in his arms still grabbing at his nose, oblivious to how heavy the atmosphere has grown.

“Thanks, dad,” Sokka says. “We actually thought about naming her after mom, but, y’know, Katara called dibs.” He and Hakoda both burst into laughter, and Suki and Bato start laughing as well. Soon, Senna is laughing along, giggling and wriggling around in Bato’s arms. He sets her down and lets her toddle back over to her father.

They talk a little while longer and visit a bit more. Eventually, Sokka has to put Senna down for nap, and Suki has official Kyoshi Warrior duties to attend to, so Hakoda and Bato sit in a peaceful silence together in their son’s living room, finishing off the tea and holding one another’s hands.

“I’m glad I came,” Bato said.

“I am too. I would have slept through the entire boat ride here if I didn’t have you kicking me awake every morning.”

They both laughed softly and Hakoda pulls Bato closer, leaning into him and reaching up to hold his face gently. They sit like this often, in a gentle embrace, feeling each other’s warmth and breathing in time with one another. They are far too old now for the adventuring and running around that they used to do when they were young men. Now it is enough to simply sit together.

“For the record,” Hakoda says, after a long stretch of silence. “You’re a wonderful grandfather. She was absolutely enamored with you.”

“Thank you, darling,” Bato says, turning to look at him. “So are you. And you always will be. Me, on the other hand…” He trails off, unsure where exactly to follow that thought. There are several different paths it can take, but he’s not sure he wanted to go down a single one of them.

“You what?” Hakoda says, squeezing Bato’s hand.

He simply shrugs. “You remember my mother. I’ve always been afraid I’m a bit too much like her.”

“Why?” Hakoda laughs. “She was a wonderful person.”

“And she also died barely knowing who I was.” He keeps his gaze down, somber. He did not expect these thoughts to float up, thought he had firmly buried them before they embarked on this trip, but here they are. After holding Senna and seeing her wide brown eyes staring back into his, he cannot bear the thought of falling ill in the same way his mother did and forgetting his love for that perfect little person—or worse, for the people he has already known for years.

“Was it that bad?” Hakoda says finally. “I never knew.” Bato nods. He feels a squeeze around his hand again, and then a shift as Hakoda pulls away from him slightly. He looks up, and Hakoda is staring at him with a rather serious expression. “I can’t say the same won’t happen to you—or to me, or to my mother, or to any number of people we love. Aging, as certain as it is, brings depths of uncertainty. But I can say that we will all love you no matter how ill you may become. And you will be a wonderful grandfather no matter what.”

Bato feels tears burning in his eyes, but he swipes them away quickly. Hakoda pulls away and plants a kiss on Bato’s cheek, but he won’t accept such a small gesture—he pulls Hakoda closer, kissing him fully, placing a hand atop his husband’s as it rests on his cheek.

“My bad—” The two men pull away and see Sokka standing in the entrance of the hallway, backpedaling quickly. “I’ll go back and nap with Senna, you two can—”

“Oh, hush Sokka!” Hakoda calls. “Bato and I have been together for over a decade now, you can handle the sight of your two old men kissing!”

“Nap time!” Sokka calls, dramatically covering his eyes as he retreats back into the bedroom. Bato and Hakoda look at each other for a long moment, exasperated, but they quickly fall into laughter, pulling each other into another long kiss and savoring the warmth that surrounds them.

“Thank you, Hakoda,” Bato says finally, holding both his husband’s hands in his own. “I needed to hear that.”

“Anytime,” Hakoda says. He presses his lips to Bato’s hands gently, then pulls away with a mischievous smile. “Now let’s go terrorize that son of ours some more.”

They stand up and stretch their old limbs, sneaking back to the bedroom and silently joining Sokka as he watches over their sleeping granddaughter. Seeing her small chest rise and fall, her curls sticking every which way, Bato is swept with another wave of love, and he knows that this is a feeling he will never forget.


End file.
